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If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

Hi,

If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

I saw the sentence in this website: http://www.grammaring.com/zero-condi...ndirect-speech
But I think it' grammatically incorrect. I mean the second part of the sentence doesn't make much sense to me because
there is no "would"
Do you agree with me?
It looks like this self made sentence:

If I saw an animal, I hunted it. (See... without "would" it doesn't make a good sense to me)

Re: If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

Originally Posted by sb70012

Hi,

If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

I saw the sentence in this website: http://www.grammaring.com/zero-condi...ndirect-speech
But I think it' grammatically incorrect. I mean the second part of the sentence doesn't make much sense to me because
there is no "would"
Do you agree with me?
It looks like this self made sentence:

If I saw an animal, I hunted it. (See... without "would" it doesn't make a good sense to me)

Any thoughts?
Thank you

The presence of "if" in an opening clause does not automatically require "would" in the following clause. Your sentence does not start with a condition that is presumed to be false, so an indicative verb is perfectly natural in the second clause. You could use "Whenever" instead of "If" in your sentence.

Re: If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

Originally Posted by MikeNewYork

I presence of "if" in an opening clause does not automatically require "would" in the following clause. Your sentence does not start with a condition that is presumed to be false, so an indicative verb is perfectly natural in the second clause. You could use "Whenever" instead of "If" in your sentence.

It's even possible to use 'would' without making it a hypothetical conditional sentence:

My father wasn't too worried about my after-school activities but, if I got home late, my mom would scold me.

Re: If I got home late, my mom scolded me.

In contexts like that, the whole structure is often referred to as 'false conditional'.Would would be perfect in a true conditional sentence when speaking of a hypothetical situation. In such a case, you're just presuming what might happen if you got home late.